There is a paucity of academic literature on stable value funds, although they occupy such a prominent place among retirement investment vehicles. They are offered in roughly one half of all defined contribution plans in the USA, with over $640 billion dollars worth of assets under management....

This paper updates and extends prior research on a financial product—annuities—that can be useful in both the accumulation of savings for retirement and the provision of steady retirement income through the end of life. It does this by evaluating the historical performance of annuity...

We investigate the impacts of financial investors in commodity markets using intraday trade-and- quote data for commodity futures. We find strong evidence of order flows and price impacts in agricultural futures markets associated with changes in the positions of index traders reported by the...

Oil price shocks are known to have a sizable macroeconomic impact, despite a relatively small fraction of total expenditures that is devoted to energy. Using micro data we document a significant effect of oil prices on labor supply and commuting distance, especially among low-skilled workers who...

We quantify the effect of a significant technological innovation, shale oil development, on asset prices. Using stock returns on major news announcement days allows us to link aggregate stock price fluctuations to shale technology innovations. We exploit cross-sectional variation in industry...

Persistent interest rate differentials account for much of the currency carry trade profitability. "Commodity currencies" offer high interest rates on average, while countries that export finished goods tend to have low interest rates. We develop a general equilibrium model of international...